While Egorushka was looking at the sleeping faces, he suddenly heard a soft singing. Somewhere not close by, a woman was singing, but precisely where and in which direction was hard to make out. The song, soft, drawn out, and mournful, like weeping, and barely audible, came now from the right, now from the left, now from above, now from under the ground, as if some invisible spirit was hovering over the steppe and singing. Egorushka looked around and could not tell where this strange song was coming from; then, when he listened better, it began to seem to him that it was the grass singing; in its song, half dead, already perished, wordless, but plaintive and sincere, it was trying to persuade someone that it was not to blame for anything, that the sun was scorching it for nothing; it insisted that it wanted passionately to live, that it was still young and would be beautiful if it were not for the heat and drought; it was not to blame, but even so, it asked forgiveness of someone, swearing that it was suffering unbearably, felt sad and sorry for itself ...
Egorushka listened a little, and it began to seem to him that this mournful, drawn-out song made the air still more sultry, hot, and immobile ... To stifle the song, he ran to the sedge, humming and trying to stamp his feet. From there he looked in all directions and found the one who was singing. Near the last hut in the hamlet, a peasant woman in a short shift, long-legged and lanky as a heron, stood sifting something. White dust drifted lazily down the knoll from under her sieve. It was now obvious that it was she who was singing. A few feet from her, a little boy stood motionless in nothing but a shirt, and with no hat. As if enchanted by the song, he did not stir and looked down somewhere, probably at Egorushka’s red shirt.
The song ceased. Egorushka trudged back to the britzka and again, having nothing to do, occupied himself with the stream of water.
And again he heard the drawn-out song. The same long-legged woman in the hamlet behind the knoll was singing. Egorushka’s boredom suddenly came back to him. He abandoned the pipe and raised his eyes. What he saw was so unexpected that he was slightly frightened. Above his head, on one of the big clumsy stones, stood a little boy in nothing but a shirt, pudgy, with a big protruding belly and skinny legs, the same one who had been standing by the woman earlier. With dull astonishment and not without fear, as if seeing otherworldly beings before him, unblinking and openmouthed, he studied Egorushka’s red shirt and the britzka. The red color of the shirt lured and caressed him, and the britzka and the people sleeping under it aroused his curiosity; perhaps he himself had not noticed how the pleasing red color and curiosity had drawn him down from the hamlet, and probably he was now astonished at his own boldness. Egorushka studied him for a long time, and he Egorushka. Both were silent and felt a certain awkwardness. After a long silence, Egorushka asked:
‘‘What’s your name?’’
The stranger’s cheeks swelled still more; he pressed his back against the stone, goggled his eyes, moved his lips, and answered in a husky bass:
‘‘Titus.’’
The boys said not one word more to each other. After a short silence, and not tearing his eyes from Egorushka, the mysterious Titus raised one leg, felt for a foothold behind him with his heel, and climbed up the stone; from there, backing up and staring point-blank at Egorushka, as if afraid he might hit him from behind, he got up onto the next stone and so kept climbing until he vanished altogether over the top of the knoll.
Having followed him with his eyes, Egorushka put his arms around his knees and bowed his head ... The hot rays burned his nape, his neck, his back ... The mournful song now died down, now drifted again through the stagnant, stifling air, the brook burbled monotonously, the horses munched, and time dragged on endlessly, as if it, too, had congealed and stopped. It seemed that a hundred years had passed since morning ... Did God want Egorushka, the britzka, and the horses to stand stock-still in this air and, like the hills, turn to stone and stay forever in one place?
Egorushka raised his head and, with bleary eyes, looked in front of him; the purple distance, which till then had been motionless, swayed and, along with the sky, sped off somewhere still further away ... It pulled the brown grass and the sedge with it, and Egorushka, with extraordinary swiftness, sped after the fleeing distance. Some force was noiselessly drawing him somewhere, and in his wake raced the heat and the wearisome song. Egorushka bowed his head and closed his eyes ...
Deniska was the first to wake up. Something had stung him, because he jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder, and said:
‘‘Heathenish anathema, the plague’s too good for you!’’
Then he went to the brook, drank, and washed for a long time. His snorting and splashing brought Egorushka out of oblivion. The boy looked at his wet face, covered with drops and large freckles, which made it look like marble, and asked:
‘‘Will we go soon?’’
Deniska looked to see how high the sun was and answered:
‘‘Ought to be soon.’’
He dried himself with his shirttail and, making a very serious face, began hopping on one leg.
‘‘Hey, let’s see who’ll reach the sedge first!’’ he said.
Egorushka was weary with heat and drowsiness, but all the same he went hopping after him. Deniska was already about twenty, he served as a coachman and was going to get married, but he had not yet stopped being a child. He loved flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing knucklebones, playing tag, and always mixed into children’s games and quarrels. The masters had only to leave or fall asleep for him to start something like hopping on one leg or throwing stones. It was hard for any adult, seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he frolicked in the company of the young ones, to keep from saying: ‘‘What a dolt!’’ But children saw nothing strange in the big coachman’s invasion of their domain: let him play, so long as he doesn’t fight! Just as little dogs see nothing strange when a big, sincere dog mixes into their company and starts playing with them.
Deniska beat Egorushka and apparently remained very pleased with that. He winked and, to show that he could hop on one leg any distance you like, proposed that Egorushka hop down the road with him and from there back to the britzka without resting. Egorushka rejected the proposal, because he was quite breathless and faint.
Suddenly Deniska made a very serious face, such as he never made, even when Kuzmichov reprimanded him or raised his stick to him; listening, he quietly lowered himself on one knee, and an expression of sternness and fear appeared on his face, as happens with people listening to heresy. He aimed his eyes at one point, slowly raised his hand with the palm cupped, and suddenly fell belly-down on the ground, hitting the grass with his hand.
‘‘Got it!’’ he croaked triumphantly and, getting up, brought to Egorushka’s eyes a big grasshopper.
Thinking it was pleasant for the grasshopper, Egorushka and Deniska stroked its broad green back with their fingers and touched its feelers. Then Deniska caught a fat bloodfilled fly and offered it to the grasshopper. Very indifferently, as if it had known Deniska for a long time, the latter moved its big visorlike jaws and bit off the fly’s stomach. Released, it flashed its pink underwings and, landing in the grass, at once chirped out its song. The fly was also released; it spread its wings and flew off to the horses minus its stomach.